It's a change in float handling in IE9 and Opera 11.6x+. One solution is to give the list "overflow:hidden" and left padding so the markers don't overflow and thus be visible. It may be desirable to reduce or remove the right margin on the left-floated element. Another solution is to give "list-style-position:inside" to the list.

lol, actually, so was I, but, everything I was trying seemed to break the layout when viewing back in IE8 compatibility mode.

thats why I mentioned "hating to suggest" my way of fixing it...it just seemed to me to be simplest way to "fix" the issue without breaking it at the same time.
I still have ALOT to learn about CSS..especially when it comes to IE browsers.